Archive for the ‘Japanese accomodation’ Category

You might have some idea, as most people in England do, that the pay in Japan is quite good. Even so, you might be surprised to hear that I recently moved into a mansion- until you realise that ‘manshon’ in Japanese (or Japanese English) doesn’t mean a stately home with extensive grounds, but just an apartment building made out of concrete. I know, I laughed at this use of the word mansion too, until I slowly began to realise all the implications of living in part of a simple wooden two-storey ‘apaato’ (often known by teachers as ‘portacabins’ or ‘trailer homes’). So, here’s the low-down for those that want it about accommodation in Japan…

So, why all the fuss about the building material of my new place and the ridiculously fancy name? Well, I don’t know about log cabins in the Rockies, but having concrete in Tokyo means you don’t have to put up with any of the following complaints about typical suburban teacher’s wooden apaato:
-Being able to hear everything your neighbours do (from snoring and pulling the toilet chain, to simply sighing or stacking their dishes in the cupboard)
-Having your building shake not just from the earthquakes (that happens everywhere), but from passing trucks, trains, cars warming their engines up downstairs, people walking too heavily along the walkway etc. etc.
-Having a flat that is colder than outside in winter and hotter than outside in summer. If you don’t want to spend a fortune on electricity (and my monthly bills were the same as a family of four in the UK), in the winter you have to live under your duvet- often with several jumpers, a hat and gloves on underneath, and in the summer you have to put your work shirt on outside your front door, so it doesn’t instantly get covered in sweat.
-Having to sort my rubbish into 5 different bags- burnable, unburnable, plastic packaging, paper and ‘dangerous’
-Cockroaches (I didn’t have any of this typical problem, but I got smelly drains that had to be drained every two weeks or so)
-Death by earthquake. Obviously, I didn’t suffer from this one either, but in the most recent biggish ones near Niigata all the new buildings stayed up, and most of the owners of old buildings are still living in tents as the snows approach

Instead of all that, now that I’ve found a ‘mansion’ of my own (actually, now that my Japanese girlfriend has found us a place of our own) I’m saved all that and finally feel like I’m living in the first world country that I see around me. The flat only costs about a quarter of an average teacher’s wages, and it comes with lots of totally unnecessary electronic nonsense, such as a radio with 800 channels and a remote control for the lights- so now I really feel like I live in the land of gadgets. You’ll be overjoyed to hear that my life is just perfect, and want to come rushing out to teach and live in Kawasaki too, but there are just two small problems- one, that my flat is very very small indeed and two, they probably wouldn’t rent it to you anyway…

I really don’t mind the size of this flat, but then, I’m only five foot eight and like a simple life. And, luckily, Japanese life is completely designed for this kind of living- everything you can buy for your tiny flat is tiny too. Shops are full of miniature washing machines (upright like a 1970s one in the UK, so it can hide in a tiny closet), towels, bottles of washing up liquid, ironing boards, baths, bath mats, hi-fis, walkmans (often mini-disc), some cans of beer, baths, condoms, futons, pillows, backpacks, rolls of sellotape, DVD boxes … The only exception is the huge dispensers of shampoo, ‘rinse’ (conditioner) and ‘body shampoo’ (shower gel), but that just helps them balance on the edge of the bath better- which is the only place you are likely to find to put them. After a while, it all seems to make sense. In fact, the Japanese love of reducing things in size is pure practicality given the limited amount of space they get in their homes and on the train coming home. In fact that, and their quest for convenience, explains the design of just about every successful Japanese product- the latest one being a VAIO desktop computer with a fold up keyboard. That would certainly save me bashing my head every time I get out of ‘bed’! Anyway, injuries aside I love all this little stuff, but you might want to think twice about coming to Japan if you are rugby-player-size. If not, you should be okay, if…

… they will actually rent a flat to you in the first place. Not only do landlords take up to 7 months rent off you when you move in, up to half of which is non-refundable ‘key-money’ (the Japanese term translates as ‘thank you money’, cheeky gits), they also demand that you have a guarantor or two. Sounds like some kind of hangover from feudalism to me- although there isn’t, as far as I know, the need to let the landlord sleep with each new bride or to send your children to work in their fields. Luckily, you might never have to worry about that anyway, because like the majority of Japanese ryokan and minshuku (bed and breakfasts), Japanese onsen (hot spring baths), Japanese hotels (at home and abroad) and Japanese hostess bars, most Japanese apartments have an unspoken ‘no foreigners’ rule- so you’ll be needing to look for a ‘foreigner friendly’ place to stay. How is such racism (or at least nationalism) possible in the modern world? No idea, but actually experiencing discrimination for the first time in my life as a white, middle-class male has been a very educational experience- as has my whole time in Japan so far (4 years). And despite the very small towels, I must say I still find every day interesting, always different, and instructive in what endless possibilities there are in life- and that is all I ask for…
Postscript- This is actually a recycled email I sent when I moved into my last “mansion”, but I still reckon most of it is true and I’ve mainly just changed the dates. Sorry about all the recycled stuff recently (if you’ve noticed), but been very busy writing not one but two stories for the EL Gazette, of which you will get an exclusive preview here even before the article is published there. Coming soon to a TEFLtastic blog near you…

10 best things to impress people with when you go home

1. Being able to read people’s kanji tattoos (it might not be what they intended!)
2. T shirts with strange English messages on them
3. Useless hi tech stuff, e.g. a mobile phone that can interpret your dog
4. Being able to eat chicken wings with chopsticks
5. Marshall arts skills
6. Debunking at least 25 myths about the Japanese they might have (although sometimes it easier just to not even start on this one)
7. Serving products with weird names at your housewarming party- Colon chocolates (brown inside!), Pocari Sweat sports drink, Cow piss soda (well, Calpis actually, but sounds the same)
8. Reading weird manga in Japanese on the London underground
9. Writing people’s name in Kanji
10. Being able to live in a flat the size of a walk in closet without getting claustrophobic (useful with present London property prices)

Why is Asian bread so sweet?

No a hundred percent sure about this. It could be that at the time they borrowed the idea from the West it tasted more like this and has stayed the same here while it has changed where it came from, like Japanese curry rice (also sweet). Alternatively, it might have spread from one Asian country with a sweet tooth to the others. In general, though, Asian countries do not have the clear distinction between sweet foods and savoury foods (or even, in Japanese, a word for “savoury”) or between courses. In fact, this could be said to reflect an Eastern avoidance of black and white either/ or distinctions at all.

Japan now fully explained on my new blog, Japanexplained.

Why is Japanese deoderant to ineffective for Westerners?

The classic explanation is that the Japanese do not sweat or smell as much, and the second might be true in some cases. More importantly, the Japanese equivalents of P&G obviously have some kind of monopolisitic hold on the drugstore market because this is one of the few sectors where Japanese companies produce such rubbish products that not even people in other Asian countries will buy them. Shiseido and Shu Uemura are the exceptions, but again you will you not find them getting a lot of shelf space in your neighbourhood drug store.

All other questions about Japan answered on my Japanexplained blog.

Another example of foreigners who come over to Japan and can’t be bothered making an effort because it’s just Japan, as also seen with many British and American rock bands (e.g. Supergrass- in it (Japan) for the money indeed!)

Rants aside, here is the next part of my serious attempt at examining why there might be so many bad teachers in Japan. Having already examined why worse teachers might come out to Japan, now it’s time to examine:

Why do good teachers leave Japan?

Note that this is now the new, improved version of this post, organised by categories and with the proviso (as demanded by the punters on Rave’s ESL Au Lait) that it is possible that some bad teachers leave for some of the same reasons:

Personal Reasons

• Women often leave because of the lack of dating opportunities
• Those that don’t have this problem still find they lack female friends due to female friends leaving
• Lack of progress with learning the language and/ or making Japanese friends makes people want to try somewhere “easier”
• The lack of a summer break like most schools in Europe take means, strangely, that people are likely to think their time is up after a year and leave at the same time as all their friends do- usually at the end of a one year contract
• The difficulty of meeting new people, especially in big cities
• Wanting to be accepted as a local but realizing it will never happen
• Not wanting your children to go to a Japanese school or university

Career Advancement and Personal Development

• Many Japanese institutions have a visible or glass ceiling at how far non-Japanese can climb up the ladder, meaning people leave after reaching a certain level or don’t bother sticking around to get promoted because they know it can only lead so far
• Lack of opportunities to take further qualifications in Japan, e.g. even people in Tokyo who want to do a DELTA must do so by distance learning, inconceivable of in any other capital city I know, there are no CELTA courses available, and the local MA in TESOL courses often demand some level of Japanese and/ or don’t have a good reputation abroad
• A lack of people, even DoSs, with a DELTA who can help you when you take a distance course
• The lack of opportunity to become a trainer on such courses
• Workshops you can go to are often aimed at a very basic level of teaching knowledge and therefore unlikely to be of interest to experienced and qualified teachers
• The lack of a clear, obvious career path into other, better schools etc. University jobs, for example, are usually not advertised, the well respected chains like Bell and IH they people sometimes move up to elsewhere do not exist, and the British Council is shrinking its operations.
• One of the steps forward in terms of pay can be to take an Assistant Language Teacher job, but as this means teaching with another teacher it often doesn’t feel like a step forward in terms of your career
• You can earn and/ or save more elsewhere
• The lack of opportunity to teach exam classes other than TOEIC or to become an examiner (for example, the British Council in Tokyo is not accepting applications for IELTS examiners)

The other staff

• The negativity of the other teachers
• A feeling that “If all these people can do this job without complaints and/ or and get paid the same, maybe I should be doing something else”
• Managers who are younger and/ or have less experience and qualifications

 Not feeling at the centre of the “TEFL world”

• The materials used by schools are often 5 or more years behind those used in Europe
• Because Japan is not a big market for the UK and US ELT publishers, work like pre-publication testing is not often available

The students

• The fact that the students don’t seem so seriously interested in learning the language and so make limited progress- only studying half an hour a week, using company classes as a chance to relax because they are overworked, not doing homework or anything else in English outside class etc. etc.
• If students are happy just to be entertained you don’t feel like you are being pushed to improve

The materials and other resources

• The lack of teaching technology such as Interactive Whiteboards, or even sometimes OHPs and photocopiers
• The lack of quality of the locally produced textbooks etc. that you sometimes have to use
• The idea that even while your ability to teach Japanese students is improving, your ability to teach other nationalities is possibily getting worse

Not matching your training

• A lack of groups of 8 to 12 students that people are usually trained to teach on their CELTA etc.
• Very few classes with even one student who doesn’t have Japanese as a first language
• A lack of flaps
• A lack of preparation time or rest time between lessons
• A lack of a range of levels
• Having to teach a mix of ages

Miscellaneous

• The difficulties of working in a Japanese office
• Good teachers leaving becomes self perpetuating- because some good teachers leave the other good teachers don’t want to stay

Standard of living

• The chance to live in a more beautiful city elsewhere
• The chance to afford a bigger and/ or otherwise better flat outside Japan
• Being able to afford the time and money to fly home more often from other countries
• Lower tax and medical insurance in some places
• Not wanting to pay into the Japanese national pension system
• No high interest local accounts to pay your savings into
• The falling yen
• The difficulties in getting mortages (especially joint ones), credit cards etc.
• Because wages have been static at best for years, people who might have wanted to stay in teaching end up applying for management jobs to keep their wages climbing and then drop out completely due to the difficulties of being a manager and/ or not really wanting to be one in the first place
• The expense of exploring further afield in Japan and flying to elsewhere in Asia
• Although it is also experienced by most Japanese, the commuting, long hours, cramped accomodation etc. can be avoided by moving to another country
• Lack of provision for working mothers

If anyone has any suggestions on anything else I can add, please let me know. I should also point out that it isn’t as bad as the list above could make it appear- I am, after all, still here teaching in a big chain of language schools after 4 years!

According to this very interesting blog by a very long term resident of Japan, you can stop earthquakes by putting carpet under the front of your cupboards. Useful to know!

Or did I misunderstand???